Relieved from the restraint of his presence, Blanche threw herself upon the sofa, and gave way to a paroxysm of grief. What a blow to her happiness was that fearful discovery! Her husband—her adored Cecil—a gambler! Men living in the world, and accustomed to mingle with those who play, cannot overcome their repugnance to a professed gambler; but what is their repugnance compared with the loathing felt by women, whose horror is unmitigated by familiarity? and what is the abstract horror of a woman, compared with the shuddering terror of a wife, who sees written before her in characters of fire the ineffaceable dishonour, the inevitable ruin of her husband and her children?
A gambler! her husband was a gambler! The luxuries with which she was surrounded were not the fruits of honest labour, but of dishonourable gaming; the trinkets which he had given her, and which she had held as precious tokens of his affection, were not purchased by his genius and energy, but were purchased from the misery of others; the gold he squandered with a lavish hand, was the gold whose loss carried perhaps despair and suicide into many a wretched family. The thought was torture. It turned all her trinkets into manacles. It made the costly furniture around her dark, grim, and reproachful.
Bitter, bitter were the scalding tears which gushed from her, as she brooded on this immeasureable horror! Terrible were the fears which assailed her as she thought of the end—the inevitable end of such a career!
All hope of happiness was now swept from out her life. Their love, which had been so trusting; their sympathy, which had been so perfect; her esteem, which had been so unsullied, where were they? Gone—irrecoverably gone!
In their poverty, how happy they had been! how contented with their lot! In the prospect of the future, made radiant with love—in the thoughts of their children, as sharers and promoters of that love—what blissful dreams had tinged with magic hues the far horizon of a life which blended with the distant life to come! And now, in one single moment, all those dreams were shattered, and the horizon darkened with thunder-clouds over a stormy sea.
You may have seen a graceful vine, heavy with clusters of the purple grape, trailed up against a garden wall; the rusty nail that fastens it, half falling from out the crumbling wall; and you have felt that the first gust of autumnal wind must tear it completely out, and hurl the poor drooping vine upon the ground.
That is an image of their life. By no stronger bond were they now separated from ruin: one turn of Fortune's capricious wheel, and they were lost.
Weep, weep, poor wretched girl! weep and prepare yourself for greater woe! The babe which now moves beneath your heart, in the dim newness of its being, whose birth was to have been the advent of such joy; what will it be born to? Weep, and prepare yourself for greater woe!